Scruffy Hair and Words to Melt
by finnickodammit
Summary: Claire Berrie hates Ryan Howard. She hates him so much shes scared when she knows his coffee order and she hates him she much that she wants to help when he turns to drugs again. She hates him so much that she begins to hate herself for thinking that this was a good idea. She just didn't want Kelly to find the bra she left at his house.( OC/Ryan. M. Friends With Benefits vibe)


**A/N- I've wanted to do an Office OC for awhile now and I'm finally doing it even though nobody is really going to read this, I thought it would be my fun hobby. This is an OC/Ryan fic. The OC's name is Claire Berries, yes Berries. It starts around season 5-6 where Ryan just got over his drug/drinking problems. You shouldn't really worry about the timeline; it's just a fun story. It's nothing really complicated, she just works at Dunder Mifflin with everyone else as a salesmen and I'll see where I go from there. There is going to be mature content later on though. Enjoy.**

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><p>With each beat of the exasperating clock hanging overhead the kitchen door-frame, the irritation levels of the employees of Dunder Mifflin grew stronger. It wasn't for with each tick, they could hear the faint sound of Michael Scott's Madonna soundtrack being played from his computer and it wasn't for the way Dwight was sharpening a knife so publicly open at his desk. It was that for the fourth time today (Yes, four. Stanley had been counting), Ryan Howard and Claire Berries had been tearing at each other's throats on purpose. They wanted a fight just to prove they could win one.<p>

"If you really think that I'm such an asshole, why don't you do something about it? Move desk, move offices! Hell, move out of this city!" Ryan Howard screamed from inside the kitchen, clasping a scorching mug of coffee, wincing slightly when the coffee would slosh out and hit his fingers. Claire noticed the red marks on Ryan's hands where the coffee had hit him and she really wanted to tell him to put the coffee down, but she also really wanted to win this fight.

"I don't think you're an asshole. I think you're trying too hard to be an asshole! Stop trying to be this Leonardo Dicaprio, James Dean- I have to be the badass, jerk son of a bitch-Oh, I get drunk everynight and sleep with eight girls a week-"

"It's been three actually-"

"Ryan! My god! I do not need to know that!"

"One of them was Kelly."

"You don't have to tell me that."

"Me and Kelly, twice actually."

"Ryan."

"Just trying to make conversation." Ryan detained a mouthful of his coffee, sloshing it around his mouth before swallowing it so he could see the rage fizzle off Claire's face and watch it transform into jealously or atleast what he thought was jealously. He didn't know if she was jealous. He just knew he liked being a smug little shit to her.

Claire wasn't jealous. She was envious. Jealous is what you are when you see someone wearing a nice blouse and you think, 'Oh, what a nice blouse, I could pull that off so much better if I had the money to buy things from the fucking diamond encrusted blouse store'. Envious is what you are when you when you can literally feel the inside of your heart being played with like a chew toy and you can't do anything about it unless you want to admit defeat to someone you've had sexual tension with for years.

"You're lousy at conversation, probably in bed with to-"

"Claire, if you-"

"Probably, I said." Claire squinted her eyes, her brown eyes skimmed Ryan's expression and she knew she had won. Even if she had technically commented him and half heartily told him he was probably good in bed in the process of winning, she was the last one to have said something so…it counts.

The kitchen door slung open, hitting the wall which resulted in a few mean glances from her co-workers. She settled herself back into her desk beside Andy and fiddled with the papers that were newly placed ontop of her keyboard.

"Howdy, ho my lady." Andy imaginably titled a top hat in the most proper manner, tied in with a Queen's English accent.

"Howdy, ho my good sir." Claire reacted back. Andy was the first person to actually make appropriate conversation with her when she started her salesmen job. Michael wouldn't stop talking about how nice of a butt she had and Kevin tried to awkwardly sit with her at lunch the first three weeks even though it was clear she liked eating lunch solo. Andy commented her on her _Wicked the Musical_ coffee mug and it was straight forward friendship from there.

"Another argue with the rhino, aye?" Andy questioned, typing on his keyboard to make the illusion that he was doing work but in reality, he was looking up local theater auditions. Claire was doing the same.

"Another argue, indeed...fucking asshole."

"Language, watch it. " Andy joked. "Just do it and get it over with."

"Excuse me?"

"He's right." Stanly commented to the left of Claire who seemed to not be paying attention to their conversation but now, obviously was. Claire side glanced at Stanly and looked up at Phyllis and saw the both of them with a smug expression on their faces. Claire's cheeks grew hot as a sudden realization that everybody knew that she wanted to sleep with Ryan. Well, he wanted to sleep with her too if that counts for anything.

"You two defiantly have something going on there, you're young, he's young…getting my picture?" Andy pronounced, popping the "ture" in picture, raising his eyebrows slightly and she could see a little pout in his lips.

"Sleeping with someone just for physical attraction is going to get you nowhere. What if there's a pregnancy? 3 out of 12 kids take on traits from the father and if that happens in this case I can take that baby from you, Claire , raise it right so it wouldn't get Ryan's distasteful qualities and you would never have to mention it again." Dwight noted, still sharpening his knife. It was scary how serious Dwight was with that statement.

"I'm not even physically attracted towards him so it would never happen." Claire rebuked.

"You're not even the slightest bit attracted to Ryan?" Jim asked, seeming baffled by Claire's lie. "Like, at all? Not even the hair?"

"Nope." Claire remained to her lie.

"Really?" Jim smirked. "Ryan! Someone get, Ryan." Impulsively, everyone at once began to demand for Ryan to come down. Claire was typing random letters on her keyboard to attempt to distract herself from what was going on but with how loud everyone was being, there was no way in hell she was getting out of Jim's manipulation.

Ryan walked out from the back, looking slightly pissed off, like they had just interrupted something important or atleast, important to him. His hair did seem a bit ruffled. Claire didn't enjoy thinking about Kelly working back there with Ryan. She tried to avoid thinking about Kelly at all cost possible. She once had to walk back and hand Kelly some files and she almost threw up. It was hard-working in the same building with the person who was ruining your chances with a guy you would never admit to liking…or that you did admit to liking. Three years ago at a Christmas party.

Claire hated herself for it. She had fallen under the stereotypical early 20's white girl group to get drunk at a Christmas party because the guy you liked was with a girl who wasn't you. She had worked at Dunder Mifflin for only about seven months at the time; Ryan was only about a year and a half…Kelly was about five years. Kelly was always one upping her. She could have sworn that since the first day she started working Ryan was hitting on her. During meetings in the conference room he would sneak glances at her and put a fake gun to his head with one hand to show how boring it was, she would laugh. He was holding Kelly's hand with the other one though. Almost every day for a week one time, he would buy her sodas out of the vending machine but everytime he left the break room he would leave with two sodas…one for him and one for Kelly.

They would have really great conversations. Claire was a really artsy person and Ryan really wanted to be an artsy person so he would literally soak up any information Claire would share about the indie world and she thought she could see how into the conversation he was and how closer he kept on getting during it but she must have imagined it. You see what you want to see, she would think. They actually had a pretty stable work friendship until the Christmas party.

14 shots in one hour. 6 the next. She couldn't stop swaying, the Christmas music sounded nothing like the jolly cheer it was meant to bring and her thoughts were everywhere, she literally could not think about anything else but having Ryan know how much she wanted to teach him about being artsy and, maybe kiss him a little. While drunk, out of all the thoughts it could have remembered, it remembered that Ryan was with Kelly. So, she took one of the drinks Oscar had whipped up for her and dumped it over Kelly's head, ruining her pretty little Christmas green dress with the golden belt and laughing the whole time the drink was dripping from her hair. Kelly screamed. Jim and Darryl had to drag her out of the room so Claire wouldn't end up dead on the floor. Claire was laughing, giggling like a school girl and Ryan just stood there watching her and being a bit confused of why he was a bit satisfied. Claire remembers her exact words, or maybe those were the words she told him but it went somewhere along the lines of; "Ryan, you're with Kelly, which I don't know why because she totally treats you like dogshit where you would not be treated like dogshit with me because we could go to art museums because I know how much you want to know about art even though that culture is totally not for you, but hey! I would try! I would not let Kelly be a bitch to you-"

And that's where Ryan cut her off and walked away and Claire was left while everyone was staring at her. She didn't come into work for two days. When she returned, she made no intention to talk about the situation or even talk to Ryan because she convinced herself, that he was an asshole…and then he actually became one. She heard the rude comments he said to Kelly but then he would see him kiss her and then she realized why Kelly was still with him. She was sure those lips could take back any rude thing ever said without question. She saw him go through his drug addiction and when he was in New York for so long, she was worried and confused and she knew, _she knew_, that Ryan was cheating on Kelly but she could still feel her heartstrings pull when she thought about his eyes staring at her while she talked about _The Artic Monkeys_ or _The Wombats._ How she wanted those eyes to be staring at her while she talked.

He came back and they didn't speak. He would rather make out with Kelly. He would argue with Claire. It started small, gradually. She spilled a bit of sugar on the counter while making her coffee one morning and he mumbled something and she snapped first. "Don't mumble, it's not polite." She remembered saying. "It's not very polite to dump drinks on people's girlfriends." She remembered him replying. "I'm sure you dumped drinks on plenty of girls in New York." And then there was yelling and screaming and by the time they were done Claire's coffee was cold and she didn't even bother cleaning up the spilt sugar.

She knew he didn't love Kelly, she also knew he didn't love her. Atleast she knew that he had to get drunk each time he slept with Kelly. Those reminders Pam gave her made her feel a little better.

She didn't want to bring up her feelings, so she covered them with fake hate. Nobody in the Office believed it, she sure didn't but if she could convinced Ryan that she did, it was okay.

"What do you guys want, I'm busy back there." Ryan stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at Jim with a blank, dull expression.

"Well, Ryan. Claire here doesn't seem to think you're attractive and as we know that she's telling the truth, we just wanted to make sure you were okay with that." Jim chewed on his pen. Jim didn't care if Claire hated what he was doing, he was going to keep on doing it until she put her arrogance up on a shelf one day and confessed to still having feelings for a douchebag.

"You don't think I'm attractive?" Ryan inquired, turning to face Claire and ask upon his face.

"No, actually not every girl in the world wants to fuck you. Surprising news, I know but get over it and get back to work, this company doesn't care about your penis as much as you think we should." You could hear Kevin giggling and Angelia exhaling over the use of language.

"You don't even like my messy hair? I thought messy hair got to you?"

"How the fuck would you know what turns me on?"

"I'm friends with Pam too." Claire looked at Pam, the corners of her eyes crinkling but too much dismay, Pam launched herself out of her chair and under her desk, hiding from the two people she just wanted to get together.

"Well, it's funny because what turns me on is a nice, hard-working, gentlemen who can take me on a date before fucking me-"

"With messy hair?"

"With messy hair-"

"So, he does have messy hair."

"Ryan, fuck off." And he walked away smirking. Jim was too. Pam was still hiding.


End file.
